“Slower, it turns out, often means better - better health, better work, better business, better family life, better exercise, better cuisine and better sex.”  Carl Honoré, "In Praise of Slow".

Carl Honoré (born 1967 in Scotland) is a Canadian journalist who wrote the internationally best-selling book In Praise of Slow (2004) about the Slow Movement.  He first explored how the Slow philosophy might be applied in every field of human endeavour and coined the phrase "slow movement".

"It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace. It's about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savouring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting."

• Honoré’s first book, In Praise of Slow, is an international bestseller in which he traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time and tackles the consequences and conundrum of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Honoré details our perennial love affair with efficiency and speed with a blend of anecdotal reportage, history, and intellectual inquiry. It is the first comprehensive look at the worldwide slow movements making their way into the mainstream – in offices, factories, neighbourhoods, kitchens, hospitals, concert halls, bedrooms, gyms, and schools.
• In his 2008 book Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting, Honoré explores the potential dangers of parents micro-managing their children and demonstrates how parents can slow down and strike a balance between too little and too much.
• In 2013 Honoré's third book The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter and Live Better in a Fast World was published. He questions the wide use of superficial, short-term quick fixes, arguing that slow fixes are better able to deliver longer-lasting ways of addressing complex problems.

For more information, you can access Carl Honoré's official website and a TED talk that he gave in London in which the author explains his insights on ‘Slowness’ (see below).

James Robinson, psychologist